Poem fractal
0.019 apart. A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.
This number is read from the build of the lines. The bright edge is that number, carried outward until the pattern repeats.
by Anne Whitney
0.3439 + 0.0269i
Drawing the boundary…
0.3257 + 0.0331i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by Anne Whitney
Ah, working-day life,
Pain, struggle and strife—
Ado and undoing,
Action and rueing,
Much undertaking,
Yet ne'er a thing making;
Purposing featly
To break as completely!
What do I live for?
What do I grieve for?
Millions like me have lived,
Millions like me have grieved;
Of each be it said
That earth was his bed,
And there he lay dreaming:
For a day, however it seemed,
He dreamed;— for a night, he dreamed that he dreamed.
'Tis a world of silences. I gave a cry
In the first sorrow my heart could not withstand;
I saw men pause, and listen, and look sad,
As though an answer in their hearts they had;
Some turned away, some came and took my hand,
For all reply.
I stood beside a grave. Years had passed by;
Sick with unanswered life I turned to death,
And whispered all my question to the grave,
And watched the flowers desolately wave,
And grass stir on it with a fitful breath,
For all reply.
I raised my eyes to heaven; my prayer went high
Into the luminous mystery of the blue;
My thought of God was purer than a flame
And God it seemed a little nearer came,
Then passed; and greater still the silence grew,
For all reply.
But you! If I can speak before I die,
I spoke to you with all my soul, and when
I look at you 'tis still my soul you see.
Oh, in your heart was there no word for me?
All would have answered had you answered then
With even a sigh.
A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. The large form and the small form are the same kind of thing. A poem can be drawn that way. The shape of the whole comes from the shape of the lines.
Primunia is the name for the source of that order: the pattern under the pattern, already there in a tree, a shell, and a verse.
The number under the picture is the poem constant. It is read from the build of the lines: their length, how uneven they are, the size of the stanzas, the share of vowels, and the way the lines end. A new word moves the number when it changes that build. The same poem always gives the same number.
Drawn on its own, that number sits in a quiet part of the plane, and most poems would look like the same soft disk. So the number is carried outward along its own direction until it meets the edge of the Mandelbrot set, where the shape turns sharp. The picture is the Julia set of that meeting place.
Each point on the canvas is folded again and again by one small rule. Points that stay near the rule form the dark interior. Points that rush away become the coloured bands. The hue comes from the poem constant, and the brightest bands turn toward gold. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.
Branching draws the poem as a tree. Each turn follows a line, and every smaller branch repeats that pattern. A longer line reaches farther. The letters at the start of a line bend the next turn. A higher share of vowels opens the branches wider.
The trunk takes its colour from the poem constant and warms toward gold at the tips. When the poem has more than one stanza, gold forks leave the trunk. Each fork is a stanza beyond the first, up to three. The tree divides where the poem divides. One stanza remains a single trunk.
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